Article July 22, 1916 Issue

A search of the Scriptures, and especially the life of the...

Avery Coonley—Prophetstown, III.

The Echo,

A search of the Scriptures, and especially the life of the Master, will show that works rather than words is the essential characteristic of the religion he founded. Among the recorded works of the great Exemplar a very large proportion are those of healing, and it was to these among other evidences of divine power that he referred when he declared, "These signs shall follow them that believe." With the command to preach the gospel he coupled the command to heal the sick, and his followers, both before the crucifixion and for several hundred years thereafter, healed the sick as a part of the exercise of their religion until the church was demoralized with materiality and formalism.

In view of these facts, Christian Science, the one branch of the Christian religion which assigns to works of healing through God's presence and power the importance which Jesus attached to them, and which, though in lesser degree by reason of lesser understanding, heals sickness together with sin and sorrow as the Master did, cannot be read out of Christianity. It is in fact furnishing the proof not only that God is able to keep us against that day, but able to save us here and now, that He is indeed a God "who forgiveth all thine iniquities; who healeth all thy diseases."

That God is personal in the sense of a material bodily personality, Christian Scientists deny, basing their conviction upon the Bible. There are innumerable statements in the Scriptures precluding the theory that God is a material personality, and none that require such a conception. I call the attention of your readers to Jesus' statement on this point to the Samaritan woman, "God is a Spirit."

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